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IN MEMORIAL : ^ 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



AtlieiiaMiiii Club. 





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:::'■. iAHM\ I.IXt/Ol.N 



COMMEMORATIVE PROCEEDINGS 



ATIIENiEUM CLUE, 



UN THE DEATH OF 



ABEAHAM LDSTCOLISr, 



PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 



A P R I Ij , 18 5. 






t4 5n 



C. H. WESrCOTT i CO., PRLVTEi:^, 
79 John Slrtct, N. I" 



« * « 



PROCEEDINGS 



ATHENyEUM CLUB. 



At the written request of several members of the 
Association, an informal meeting was held at the 
Club House, on the evening of the 18th day of 
April, 1865. 

The President, Mr. William T. Blodgett, in call- 
ing the meeting to order, addressed the members as 
follows : 

Gentlemen : The members of the Athenaeum 
Club have assembled this evening under cir- 
cumstances of the most painful and distressing 
character. A National Calamity has befallen us 
which has no parallel in the history of the 
world in modern times. Our representative head 
has been stricken down by the hand of an 
assassin, in the hour of our country's regene- 
ration, and has turned a nation's joy and ju- 



bilee into a nation's grief and woe. We have 
met this evening to take such action as may be 
meet and proper to give expression to the feel- 
ings of this Clnb, at the Great Caharaity which 
has befallen us all in the loss of our wise ruler 
and that good man, Abraham Lincoln, President of 
the United States. Let us, as a Club, give ex- 
pression to our grief, and mingle onr sympathies 
with those of our common country. 

On motion of Mr. T. Bailey Myers, the following 
resolution was unanimously adopted : 

liesoh-ecl ; That a Committee of seven be appointed by the 
Chair to propose and submit to the Club, resolutions expressive 
of the profound g-rief felt by its members at the loss the country 
has sustained in the assassination of tlic President of the United 
States. 

The following gentlemen were designated to com- 
pose such Committee : 

T. Bailey Myers, Chairman, 
Francis A. Stout, George P. Putnam, 

Henry T. Tuckerman, John H. Platt, 

W. Gary Smith, Richard Winne. 

On motion of Mr. John A. C. Gray, it was 

Resolved; That a Cdmmittee be appointed to communicate with 
the authorities, and make such arrangements as will enable the 
Club to particiiiatc in any funeral obsequies that may be institu- 
ted in honor of the late President. 



The Chair announced the following Committee of 
Arrangements : 

John A. C. Gray, Chairman. 
Jas. H. Van Alen, Horack M. KuriOLES, 

William S. Constant, Schuyler Skaats, 

W. Gracie Ullshoeffer, John H. Prout. 

Captain Charles Pyne suggested that we should 
recommend to the Art Committee to secure, from 
one of the Artist Members, a portrait of the late 
President, to he hung in the Club-House. This 
suggestion was approved. 

On motion, the meeting adjourned to meet on the 
following evening to receive the reports of the Com- 
mittees. 

GEORGE V. N. BALDWIN, 
Scrretary. 



April m/i, 18G5. 

Pursuant to ndjournineut, the Club assembled 
at 8 o'clock, p. M., the President in the Chair. The 
proceedings of the previous meeting were read and 
approved. 

Mr. T Bailey Myers, Chairman of the Committee 
on Resolutions, prefaced their introduction with the 
following remarks : 



'fe 



Mr. President : The duty has been devolved upon 
me of submitting to the Club resolutions feebly- 
expressing our sympathy in this great National 
Bereavement. It would appear eminently proper 
that we should participate in the public grief 
over our fallen leader. We have sympathized in 
his struggles, have appreciated his exertions and 
his sacrifices, and now that he has crowned them 
with his life, it is just that we should lay our 
humble tribute on his bloody tomb. We all rec- 
ollect how doubtfully his first Inauguration was 
received, how many of us distrusted his ability 
to cope with the Southern people, goaded into a 
bitter hatred of the North, under the lash of their 
unscrupulous leaders. We remember, too, how the 



heart of the Nation rose when he proclaimed that 
the Unity of the States should be preserved. We 
had doubted, under the feeble Administration of his 
predecessor, whether we were a Nation or a tempo- 
rary consolidation of communities, to be broken at 
will by any factious member. We realized, when 
the cannon thundered before Sumpter, that we still 
possessed the love of country and the disposition 
to save it at any cost, which were necessary to in- 
sure that end. We had rung conciliation, compro- 
mise, and concession, through all their phases ; 
had hesitated at coercion, but now we recognized 
subjugation, if necessary, as preferable to annihila- 
tion, held one more Union-saving meeting, threw 
down the olive-branch and drew the sword. Party 
preferences forgotten, a whole people rushed to arms 
and accepted Abraham Lincoln as their leader. 

Clubs are little worlds in themselves, each mem- 
ber brings to a common centre his prejudices and 
his sympathies, his intelligence in discussion, and 
his candor in accepting conviction. The Clubs of 
New York, as organized bodies of intelligent men, 
at once became the centre of Patriotic activity, 
and much good was done in those early days, and 
many a man buckled on his sword, took up his 
pen, or arrayed himself actively and usefully in 
the great cause, inspired by the convictions ripen- 
ed by Club discussion. 



8 

The AtheiKciun, Sir, was not behind in this great 
work, and she can point with pride to a long- 
list of members who have done good service in 
the field, in the study, or in the councils of the 
nation. 

We can recall how intently those who found 
no better opportunity in active exertion, watched 
the struggle and followed the progress of our 
armies with their flag-markers on the map, as 
they slowly progressed on the borders of the dark 
region of Secession, grand enough to form the area 
of an Empire, dark enough for the antechamber 
of Hades. The news from the army was received 
with intense anxiety ; we mourned over their re- 
verses, we rejoiced in their triumphs ; we fought 
their battles over again, canvassed private infor- 
mation and public reports, and sometimes accepted 
probabilities for results and rumors for facts, often 
to be disappointed. We had our favorite generals, 
and our prejudices against generals, and discussed 
the merits of Butler (first in the field), McClellan, 
Fremont, McDowell, Pope, Burnside, Rosecrans, 
Sherman, Thomas, Sheridan, and Grant, as each 
in turn assumed a prominent place. Perhaps we 
had a stronger bias for our own three Major- 
Generals in the field, and a warmer desire that op- 
portunity should be given to them than to others, 
not only because they were Athenaeum men, but 



becausje they had distinguished themselves in iiumy 
a desperate struggle. Nor were our naval heroes 
overlooked in the councils of the Chib, or their 
brilliant achievements forgotten. "With them to en- 
gage was to succeed, and a battle was almost in- 
variably a victory. 

Perhaps these easy-chair criticisms of more earnest 
patriots, who fought and suffered while we were 
discussing their efforts in a peaceful seclusion from 
the din of battle, to which we were indebted to 
their valor, might argue indifference to the mighty 
events which were passing around us ; but while it 
was not possible for all to participate, it is but 
just to believe that many reluctantly accepted in- 
action as a necessity. To discuss and to read the 
newspaijers are pure American characteristics. The 
deliberations of the Athenaeum were but typical of 
those of all circles at home, and of the Cabinets and 
people of every civilized nation of the globe. The 
institutions of a mighty nation were on their trial, 
and the question of self-government to be passed 
upon. Well might those not battling for them 
watch and pray ! 

Meanwhile, four years were dragging slowly on. 
The hand on the dial seemed leaden in its 
course. The hope of peace, often apparently near 
at hand, still intangible and remote. 

In all this period there was a patient, hopeful, ear- 



10 

nest man, gifted with a clear perception and an honest, 
patriotic heart, struggling at the national capital, 
often within sound of the enemy's cannon, at once 
the ruler and the servant of the people. To him, 
years were hut as days in preserving the life of 
the nation ; he stopped at no labor, he complained 
of no fatigue, he shunned no responsibility ; his 
only recreation seemed to be the indulgence of a 
quaint humor in an occasional epigram or joke, 
which served to show how light his heart was in 
his good work. We have heard of no jokes made 
by Jefferson Davis in the course of. this war. He 
has lived to realize in the very existence of his 
paper fabric of a confederacy the saddest burlesque 
of the century. 

The exertions of Mr. Lincoln, and the immense 
labors thrown upon him in those years, those who 
have witnessed them can scarcely realize, and they 
will be but faintly portrayed when the history of 
the struggle is written. He had to organize a 
government, an army, a navy, a treasury, to select 
his co-laborers, to reconcile their jealousies, to har- 
monize discordant factions, to satisfy grasping place- 
seekers, to decide on such vexed questions of policy 
at home and abroad, as had never been passed 
upon by any of his predecessors. He had to reward 
the deserving, encourage the desponding, temper the 
zeal of the too confident, replenish and protect the 



11 

treasury, claim the services and the blood of new 
levies, and carry on, often upon his own responsibil- 
ity, a war the most gigantic in the history of the 
world. Who could wonder that he made occasional 
errors, or that the people sometimes complained of 
his policy ? 

But when his course was passed upon by the 
people, his re-election proved to the North that his 
general policy was sanctioned, and that they were 
ready to carry on the war if it lasted four years 
longer, aye, or forty years longer — until the great 
result was gained. 

It proved to the South that there was no escape 
for them in empty truce or hollow compromise, that 
Lincoln had promisetl that he would repossess our 
forts, and public places, and restore every star to 
our flag, and that promise was about to be fulfilled. 
Lincoln was re-elected ! Sherman was advancing, 
Grant stood firm before Richmond, after refusing 
to recognise defeat, and the Anaconda was wind- 
ing itself slowly around the body of the Beast. 

At length came the crowning success, Richmond 
had fallen ! and Lincoln was in person in the rebel 
capital, intent, with the generous impulse of a noble 
heart, to check the carnage and protect the fallen 
foe. Scarcely returned from that mission of mercy, 
the felon blow was struck, which calls forth a 
Nation's Grief. 



12 

Had he fallen by the hand of an nnyielding rebel, 
on his entry into the capital, there would have 
been some palliation for the act in the voluntary 
risk he assumed, bat to strike him unarmed and 
unprotected, in the bosom of his family, in a place 
of amusement, where he had gone as a simple 
American citizen, unprotected by the guard his 
rank could have claimed, and the value of his life 
to the people required, was to take advantage of 
his confiding nature, and in his act the assassin 
displayed the utter baseness and depravitj^ of his 
nature, and the horrible teachings of the fallen 
cause be sought to sustain by Murder. 

It will be said, sir, that his act was not justified 
by the whole Southern people, and there will 
doubtless be those there who will denounce it as 
a crime and despise the assassin, but there will 
be many to exult in Lincoln's fall, and would be 
more if he had not lived to inaugurate measures 
of forgiveness which they will fear his successor 
may not carry out. The claim of the South to 
represent the second age of Chivalry has departed. 
A gentle heart was as necessary to it as gentle 
blood. Such a heart beat in the bosom of Abra- 
ham Lincoln, and it beat long enough after hum- 
bling the haughty and setting their bondsmen 
free, in turn to temper his treatment to the van- 
quished with mercy and allow his captives to de- 



13 

part in safety, each with the free gift of his 
charger and his sword. Chivahy had no nobler 
achievement or more gentle courtesy than this ! 
Contrast with it the Libby Prison and the prison 
pens of the remote South, where our brother mem- 
bers have participated in Southern hospitality ! They 
were not arranged after the fashion of chivalric re- 
ceptions of a fallen foe ! There was little of chiv- 
alry in the massacre at Fort Pillow. We have no 
record of threats to " cut out the hearts," no minute 
descriptions of curious knives to " disembowel" an 
adversary, no shell hidden in coal bunkers, no 
theory of starving a captured foeman into a non- 
combatant, in the pages of Froissart or Monstrelet. 
It is to the savage teaching of Secession and not 
of Chivalry, that we are indebted, that we have 
to-day a wide house of mourning in our Land, 
and a Martyred successor of Washington in our 
Annals. 

On behalf of the Committee, I offer the follow- 
ing resolutions : 

Whereas, Providence has permitted in its Wisdom that the 
President of the United States should fall by an assassin's blow, 
aimed at the dig-nity of the Nation : the Athenaeum Club, recog- 
nizing the loss which they have sustained in common with their 
fellow-citizens, do 

Sesolve ; That we recognise in the life of our lamented Chief 
Magistrate, the patient and untiring eflbrts of a noble, magnani- 
mous and patriotic heart to restore to its integrity a Nation over 



14 

which it was his fortune to be called to Preside when divided and 
torn by a rebellion more savage and vindictive than any known in 
the history of the world, and that in his death we have witnessed 
a Martyrdom to those efforts which turned against his life the 
fangs of the serpent which he had torn from the heart of his 
country. 

That, in his efforts to achieve this great work, he has displayed 
a patriotic perseverance and an ardent desire to restore the Union 
with as little distress as was practicable, even to those misguided 
men who, from motives of personal ambition, have striven, with a 
fiendish malignity, to destroy what their fathers created. 

That, at the moment of his death, he had fully accomplished what 
he had so long struggled for, with varied success, earning a re- 
ward only second to that bestowed upon the Father of his Coun- 
try, and leaving it to his successor to deal with the leaders of 
this vile conspiracy, and to i-eorganize and protect their mis- 
guided followers under the protection of the old flag. 

Besolved ; That in the manner of his death we witness the re- 
sults of the teachings of secession, and how they have succeeded 
in " firing the Southern heart," as manift'Sted in the bitter hatred 
which has been displayed by the rebels in all their acts, and that 
in the assassination of one so genial, so kindly, and so generousi 
at the very moment when he was standing between the defeated 
and prostrate traitors and the indignation of an outraged people, 
will, when consciousness retm-ns to these misguided men, teach 
them that they have more to regret in his death than those who 
have, under the Constitution, recognised his administration and 
strengthened his hands. As Moses from the top of Pisgali be- 
held the promised land, he was permitted to view the coming res- 
toration of the Union of the States and the Triumph of the Laws, 
for which he had patiently labored through four tempestuous 
years, before his e_yes were closed in death. 

Bemlved ; That we tender the expression of our deep sympathy 
to the family of the late President and to our fellow-citizens. 

Resolved ; That the Club House be draped in Black, and that the 
niemliers wear the ordinary badge of mourning for thirty days. 



15 

£esolved ; That we tender our profound sympatliy to the Secre- 
tary of State, and to the Assistant Secretary, in the dastardly 
assault committed upon them, and our contempt for the cowardice 
manifested in attacking a man while confined to a bed of sick- 
ness ; and we trust that Providence will speedily restore them 
to health and to their Patriotic duties. 

Mr. Parke Godwin, in seconding the resolutions, 
said : 

Mr. President and Gentlemen: 

How grand and how glorious, yet how terrible, 
the times in which we are permitted to live ! How 
profound and various the emotions that alternately 
depress and thrill our hearts, like these April 
skies — now all smiles, and now all tears. Within 
a week — the Holy Week, as it is called in the Ru- 
brics of our churches — we have had our Triumphal 
entries, amid the waving of the palms of Peace ; 
we have had our dread Friday of Crucifixion ; we 
have had, too, in the recently renewed Patriotism of 
the Nation, a resurrection of a new and better life ! 
[Sensation.] 

It seems but a day or two since we listened to 
the music of the glad and festive parade ; we saw 
the Banners of our pride waving with beauty in every 
air, their Stars bright as the stars of the morning, and 
their rays of white and red, like the beams of the 
rainbow, telling that the tempest was past. We press- 
ed hands and hurrahed, and grew almost delirious 



16 

with the joy that Peace had come, that Unity was 
secured, that Liberty and Justice, like the cheru- 
bim of the Ark, woiikl stretch their wings over the 
altars of our country, and stand forever as the guar- 
dian angels of her sanctity and glory. [Applause.] 

But now these exultant strains are changed into 
the dull and heavy toll of bells ; those flags are 
folded and draped in the emblems of Mourning ; 
and our hearts, giving forth no more the cheering 
shouts of Victory, are despondent and full of sadness. 

The great Captain of our cause — the Commander- 
in-Chief of our armies and navies — the President of 
our civic councils — the centre and director of move- 
ments — this true son of the People — once the poor 
flat-boatman — the village lawyer that was — the raw, 
uncouth, yet unsophisticated child of our American 
society and institutions, whom that society and those 
institutions had lifted out of his low estate to the 
foremost dignity of the world — Abraham Lincoln — 
smitten by the basest hand ever upraised against 
human innocence, is gone, gone, gone ! He who 
had borne the heaviest of the brunt, in our four 
long years of war, whose pulse beat livelier, whose 
eyes danced brighter than any others, when 

" the storm drew off 



In scattered thunders groaning round tlie liiUs," 

in the supreme hour of his joy and glory was struck 
down. That genial, kindly heart has ceased to beat ; 



17 

that noble brain has oozed from its mysterious beds ; 
that manly form lies stiff in Death's iey fetters, and 
all of him that was mortal has sunk " to the portion 
of weeds and outworn faces." [Sensation.] 

Our feelings are now too deep to ask or warrant 
any attempt at an analysis of tlie character of 
the services of the man whose loss we deplore. 
Standing over his bier, looking down almost into 
the tomb to which he must shortly be consigned, we 
are conscious only of our grief We know that one 
who was great in himself, as well as by position, 
has suddenly departed. There is something start- 
ling, ghastly, awful in the manner of his going off. 
But the chief poignaucy of our distress is not for 
greatness fallen, but for the goodness lost. Presi- 
dents have died before ; during this bloody war we 
have lost many eminent generals — Lyons, Baker, 
Kearney, Sedgwick, Mitchell, and others ; we have 
lost lately our finest scholar, publicist, orator, 

" that when he spoke, 



The air, a chartered hbertiue, was still, 

' To steal his sweet and honeyed sentences.' " 

Our hearts still bleed for the companion.s, friends, 
brothers that sleep the sleep " that knows no wak- 
ing," but no loss has been comparable to his, who 
was our supremest Leader — our safest Counsellor — 
our wisest Friend — our dear Father. Would you 
know what Lincoln was, look at this vast metropo- 

3 



18 

lis, covered with the habiliments of woe ! Never in 
hnman history has there been so universal, so spon- 
taneous, so profound an expression of a Nation's be- 
reavement. In all our churches, without distinction 
of sect ; in all our journals, without distinction of 
party ; in all our workshops, in all our counting 
houses — from the stateliest mansion to the lowliest 
liovel — you hear but the one utterance, you see bat 
the one emblem of sorrow. Why has the death of 
Abraham Lincoln taken such deep hold of every 
class ? Partly, no doubt, because of the awful and 
atrocious method of his death ; partly because he 
was our Chief Magistrate; but, mainly, I think, 
because through all his public functions there shone 
the fact that he was a wise and good man ; a 
kindly, honest, noble man ; a man in whom the peo- 
ple recognised their own better qualities ; whom they, 
whatever their political convictions, trusted ; whom 
they respected ; whom they loved ; a man as pure 
of heart, as patriotic of impulse, as patient, gentle, 
sweet and lovely of nature, as ever history lifted 
out of the sphere of the domestic aflfections to en- 
shrine forever in the atlections of the world. [Loud 
and continuous applause.] 

Yet, we sorrow not as those who are without hope. 
Onr Chief has gone, bnt our cause remains ; dearer to 
our hearts, because he is now become its martyr ; con- 
secrated by his sacrifice ; more widely accepted by all 



19 

parties; and fragrant and lovely forevermore in the 
memories of all the good and the great of all lands, 
and for all time. The rebellion, which began in the 
blackest treachery, to be ended in the foulest assassi- 
nation ; for, as Shakespeare says, 

" Treason and niunler ever kejit tufietlier. 
As two yoke-devils swurn to eitlier's purpose," 

this rebellion, accuirsed in its motive, which was to 
rivet the shackles of slavery on a whole race for all the 
future ; accursed in its means, which have been " red 
ruin and the breaking up of laws," the overthrow of 
the mildest and blessedest of governments, and the 
profuse shedding of brother's blood by brother's hands; 
accursed in its accompaniments of violence, cruelty, 
and barbarism, is now doubly accursed in its final act 
of cold-blooded murder. [Applause.] 

Cold-blooded ! but impotent, and defeated in its 
own purposes. The frenzied hand which slew the 
head of the government, in the mad hope of paralyzing 
its functions, only drew the hearts of the people to- 
gether more closely to strengthen and sustain its 
power. All the North once more, without party or di- 
vision, clenches hands around the common altar ; all 
the North swears a more earnest fidelity to freedom; 
all the North again presents its breasts, as the living 
shield and bulwark of the nation's unity and life. Oh! 
foolish and wicked dream, Oh! insanity of fanaticism, 
Oh ! blindness of black hate — to think that this ma- 



20 

jestic temple of human liberty, with its clustered 
columns of free and prosperous states, and whose 
base is as broad as the continent — could be shaken 
to pieces by striking off the ornaments of its capital ! 
No ! this Nation lives, not in one man nor in a 
hundred men, however eminent, however able, how- 
ever endeared to us ; but in the affections, the virtues, 
the energies, and the will of the whole American peo- 
ple. It has perpetual succession, not like a Dynasty 
in the line of its rulers, but in the line of its masses. 
They are always alive ; they are always present to 
empower its acts and to impart an unceasing vitality 
to its institutions. No mauiac's blade, no traitor's bul- 
let shall ever penetrate that heart, for it is immoital, 
like the substance of Milton's angels, and can only 
"by annihilating die." [Applause.] 

These sudden visitations of Providence ; these mys- 
terious and fearful vicissitudes in the destinies of na- 
tions and individuals, always seem to our shortsighted 
human wisdom as inscrutable. Nor would it be less 
than presumption in any one to attempt to interpret 
the meaning of the Divine Mind in this late and most 
appalling affliction. God, as he passes, the Scriptures 
tell us, can only be seen from behind, can only he seen 
when events have gone by. Until then we grope in 
the darkness, we guess at l)est but dimly, we more of- 
ten muse in mere )nufe wonder and awe. Yet it is 
always permitted us to extract such good as we may 



21 

from his seeming frowns and judgments. Thus I dis- 
cern, in the removal of Mr. Lincohi — lamentable and 
horrible as it was in its circumstances — some reasons 
for a calm and hopeful submission to the Divine Will. 
I can see how our nation is cemented by its tears into 
a more universal and affectionate brotherhood ; I can 
see how the Proclamation of Freedom must become 
the eternal law of our hearts, if not of the land, 
through the martyrdom and canonization of its author; 
I can see how the atrocious crime of assassination 
must tear away from the rebellion every friend that it 
had left in the civilized world abroad ; and I can see 
how the succession of Mr. Johnson — a Southern man, 
known to the Southern people by the fact of his origin 
and principles, not amenable to the prejudices knotted 
and gnarled about Mr. Lincoln — shall undermine the 
supremacy of the Southern leaders and reconcile the 
deluded masses more rapidly than any acts of amnesty 
or promises of forgiveness. [Cheers.] 

But what impresses me most forcibly in all this 
business is, the new demonstration that it has given of 
the inherent strength and elasticity of democratic gov- 
ernment. We have conducted the most stupendous 
war ever undertaken — a war that involved the block- 
ade of six thousand miles of seacoast — the defence of 
two thousand miles of frontier — the clearing and hold- 
ing of the second largest river of the globe, and the 
occupation of a territory greater than all Europe (with- 



22 

out Russia) not only energetically, but successfully. 
We have done it without abandoning, or vitiating, or 
dislocating any of our fundamental institutions. For, 
in the midst of this gigantic convulsion, we carried on 
a political canvass and a Presidential election as qui- 
etly as they choose a beadle or a churchwarden else- 
where ; and now we have our principal men of office 
killed or disabled, and the government goes on with- 
out a jar, and society moves in its appointed way 
without a rip])le of outbreak or disorder. Oh ! yes, 
Americans, oiu- good ship of State, which the tempests 
assail with their wild fury, which the angry surges 
lift in their arms, that they may drop her into the 
yawning gulf, which the treacherous hidden rocks 
below grind and torture, yet sails on securely to her 
destined port ; and when the very Prince of the Power 
of the Air smites her Captain at the helm, and the 
iirst mate in his berth, she still sails on securely to lier 
destined port ; for her crew is still there ; they know 
her bearings and will steer right on by the compass 
of Eternal justice, and under the celestial light of 
Liberty. 

v^. ]\Ir. George "f^ Putnam sustained the resolutions, 
as follows : 

Mr. Pkesident: It may be presumptuous, especially 
for one who has no power as a .speaker, to add any- 



23 



thing to the eloquent and forcible remarks of tlie gen- 
tlemen who have ah-eatly spoken. I would with 
deference merely refer to one or two thoughts which 
have been already expressed. 

Mr. Godwin has well said, that even in this over- 
whelming calamity and amidst this deeply afiecting 
spectacle of a great nation in tears, for the loss of 
its loved and honored chief, we do not sorrow as 
those who have no hope. May it not be, sir, that 
the beneficent Ruler of the Universe has permit- 
ted this heavy blow to be struck for His own wise 
and merciful purposes of permanent good to this 
nation ; that this crowning bereavement, like many 
lesser disasters throughout the great struggle of these 
troublous and fruitful years, may prove to have 
been needful for our national salvation and national 
purification ? May it not prove that there was dan- 
ger of too much leniency and forbearance to traitors, 
and that God would teach us that Justice must not 
be wholly superseded even by benignant Mercy ? 
Is not our new President right, in saying that in 
the present position of this nation, indulgence to 
leading traitors may be cruelty to the State ? 

For one, sir, I must confess a mortal repugnance 
to bloody revenge, and I believe the worst use you 
can make of a man is to hang him. I would o-ive 
full force to all tliose considerations, which are 
rightly urged against vindictive retaliation even for 



24 

the crimes of the authors and leaders of tliis foul 
rebellion. The spirit of our Saviour's teachings 
should govern this people as well as the law from 
Mount Sinai. But, sir, what can any one of us ask 
or expect of our government in disposing of the 
responsible leaders of the hite audacious and wicked 
conspiracy against the life of a nation — the tortur- 
ers and butchers of our prisoners, and the authors, 
at least of the teachings which have prompted the 
attempt at midnight murder of thousands of peace- 
able women and children in our cities, and now the 
dastardly assassination of the great and good Chief 
of the nation 1 Can we expect that these criminals 
(wherever the difficult line may be drawn) shall 
suffer k'ss than permanent expatriation from the 
land they have steeped in blood and covered with 
the graves of tens of thousands of martyrs to their 
unholy, selfish, reckless ambition ? 

If we say nothing of the shining marks — the 
nobler victims of the war itself — the Ellsworths, the 
Lowells, the Sedgwicks, the Winthrops, the Wads- 
worths, who have fallen in the field — can we again 
welcome to honorable citizenship, the men who either 
directed or countenanced the doings at Fort Pillow, 
at Lawrence, at Salisbury, and Andersonville ? 

Sir, we are glad to believe, whatever may have 
been previous impressions, that in our new Presi- 
dent we have a man of nerve, of integrity, and 



25 

of ability, wlio will not shrink from the tluties 
devolving upon him,, but will administer justice 
in no spirit of mean revenge, bat as the executive 
agent of a great people who have earned by their 
best blood, the right, under God's blessing, of future 
security and permanent peace. 

We are willing to believe that he, too, as well 
as his martyred predecessor, has been fitted by the 
Almighty — over and above all defects of education 
or the personal associations of a slave-state — for 
the momentous duties of the hour upon which 
depends the future of this continent. 

Glance back a few years — nay a few months. 
The suggestions of experience, the wonderful teach- 
ings of Providence, which crowd upon us as we 
look at i)ast events, would fill volumes. I do 
not presume to detain you. But just think of 
Abraham Lincoln, legally, rightfully chosen though 
he was, for his high office — yet obliged to reach 
the Capital almost as a fugitive in disguise. Think 
of the then current jeers about " Old Abe the rail- 
splitter" — " the buffoon" — " the ape," not so-called 
only by Southern rebels, but openly in the streets 
of New York — think of the amazing task which 
lay before this untried lawyer of a Western vil- 
lage — think of his difficulties and discouragements — 
not from open foes alone, but from professed 

friends — his own party supporters almost deserting 

4 



26 

him as unequal to the crisis, and calling for " a 
Dictator." Think of the fact that his wisdom and 
ability were thus doubted, not merely in the first 
year of repulses and disasters, but that even within 
the last eight months, some of the most active 
republicans were busily planning to supersede 
him as the " weakest candidate" for the succes- 
sion ; consider the harassing pressure upon him 
by visionary or selfish friends, for widely opposite 
and variously doubtful schemes of public policy — 
consider his calm patience, his quiet energy — his 
modest and kindly bearing to all — his sublime 
and enduring faith in the God of justice and 
of mercy ! And now that his bodily presence with 
us has ceased forever, look around and see this 
great city — nay, almost every habitation in the 
land, literally draped in mourning — not dictated 
by Imperial edict, biit the spontaneous symbol 
of a deep and earnest sorrow — shared, let us 
believ^e, sincerely, by thousands who had hitherto 
reviled while they secretly must have respected and 
admired this true " man of the people." Observe 
men of all shades of opinion and faith lauding his 
virtues, doing homage to his noble patriotism, his 
immortal services to the people he loved so well ! 

Has any one of us walked our streets since Satur- 
day, without having the tears rise unbidden at these 
spontaneous tokens of heartfelt afiection and respect 



27 

for our late President ? Has the world ever seen a 
spectacle more touching, more worthy of a free 
people ? Suppose he had lived a few weeks longer 
to see the full consummation of that glad time, 
when the old flag waving in every city and village 
over the broad land, is again acknowledged and 
respected and loved as the symbol of a great Na- 
tionality, governed by the eternal principles of jus- 
tice, and enjoying the blessings of freedom, in peace 
and prosperity. Suppose this new era had fully 
dawned, and Abraham Lincoln, the rail-splitter, had 
again visited our great cities, what would have 
been his reception ? But he was permitted to reach 
only the near view of this glorious result of all 
his patient toil and quiet fliith, now so well assured. 

It has been well said, also, by Mr. Godwin, that 
this event leaves a great lesson, and a cause for 
national gratitude amidst our grief, in the proof it 
has given the world of the stability of our institu- 
tions. Shrewd and judicious, though, perhaps, over- 
timid men feared at first, that a blow so startling 
must be followed by distrust, confusion, anarchy. 
But the wheels of government have moved steadily 
and serenely on ; the " gold" thermometer of Wall 
street was scarcely disturbed by a fraction, and on 
the Saturday which proclaimed the national ca- 
lamity, and while the nation was almost paralyzed 
with horror at the parricide, the nation's popular 



28 

loan received larger subscriptions than ever before ! 
The confidence of the people was firm and unshaken. 
Well may we look at the bow of promise, even 
now visible over the heavy cloud of affliction ! Well 
may we believe that the tears now mingled over 
the bier of the last great victim of the expiring 
monsters, Slavery and Treason, with the blood of 
the noble army of martyrs who have gone before, 
will together unite the hearts of this great people, 
purified and renovated, and rising, as in the resur- 
rection morning, to a future life of happiness and 
peace. For well is it already written of Abraham 
Lincoln — 

" His patient toil 

Has robed our cause in Victory's light : 
Our country stood redeemed and bright, 
With not a slave upon her soil. 

" A Martyr to the cause of man, 
His lilood is Freedom's Eueliarist, 
And in the world's great hero-list 

His name shall lead the van." 

Mr. W. Gary Smith followed with these remarks : 

Mr. President : I have a natural hesitancy in ris- 
ing to speak at such a time, while your minds are 
still under the spell of the eloquent words to which 
you have just listened. But as it has been thought 
well that there should be some expression on the 
part of the younger members of the Club, I beg 
your indulgence for a moment. 



29 

Sir, the President of the United States has fallen 
by the hand of an assassin. Such an announce- 
ment needs no remarks. For a period of two 
hundred and twenty-five years no such event has 
occurred. For the first time in all the many ve- 
hement and heated struggles of our national history, 
political animosity and partisan hate, defeated at 
the ballot-box and in the field, has vented its baf- 
fled rage in the perpetration of a crime, at which 
the Civilization of the age stands appalled, a crime 
against humanity and Christianity, against man 
and against God. 

' This is no natural out-growth of our American 
institutions. But it becomes us as citizens of a 
common country to consider well, whether there be 
anything in the social organization of any portion 
of it, favorable to the engendering of such a moral 
monster as the doer of this deed, any habits of 
thought, of action, any tone of feeling pervading 
a community of which this crowning iniquity is a 
legitimate expression. I desire to avoid offence, but, 
sir, as a Southerner by birth, I maintain, and it 
cannot be denied, that there is a portion of this 
land, whose leaders, grown rich on the unrequited 
toil of bondsmen, yet claiming to be a chivalric na- 
tion of gentlemen, have openly advocated this deed, 
the very shadow of whose monstrous iniquity dark- 
ens the heavens. 



30 

It cannot be denied that this assassin can look for 
approval, for aid, for protection, in no part of Chris- 
tendom, save in the limits of that section of the 
Union so recently in rebellion against the govern- 
ment. 

The responsibility of this crime is justly charg- 
able upon the South. Their so-called domestic in- 
stitutions and their leaders, stand to-day arraigned 
at the bar of the civilized world as criminal against 
the rights of mankind. 

It is our duty to see to it that the last vestige of 
this barbarism be eradicated. We owe it to our- 
selves, to posterity, to liberty, never to pause, to rest, 
nor to falter, till the land be purged. 

In view of the humble origin of the late Presi- 
dent, of his upright character, his inestimable ser- 
vices, let no man despair of the safety of this 
Republic. The unbroken civil order maintained dur- 
ing the shock which followed his untimely death, 
fully vindicates the majesty of Popular government. 

The blow which- reft his life, dissipated in an 
instant the vapors of prejudice and partisan mis- 
representations which endeavored to impede his prog- 
ress. His place in history is henceforth secure, 
the memory of his just deeds immortal. 

His body mingles with the sacred ashes of those 
over whom a nation watches with jealous, loving 
care. His spirit has gone to lead the van of that 



31 

long triumphant procession of heroes and martyrs 
of Uberty, who, in all the pomp and circumstance of 
a militant faith, have passed through the portals of 
time into the light of perfect day. 

Mr. Francis A. Stout made the following re- 
marks in regard to a significant fact connected 
with the last hours of Mr. Lincoln. Mr. Stout 
said : 

An incident has come to my knowledge which, 
at this sad time, is of unusual interest. 

About ten days since, one of our members. Gen- 
eral Van Alen, became, even more tjian ever, 
profoundly impressed with the inestimable value 
to the country, at this peculiar juncture of public 
affairs, of the life of Abraham Lincoln, the wisest 
and best of contemporary Americans. 

Under the impulse of an uncontrollable and 
almost prophetic anxiety, he then wrote to the 
President, urging him to guard his life with greater 
care, that his personal security might sutler no 
detriment from rebel knife or bullet, and that the 
nation might be assured of its own safety by 
contemplating his. 

On Friday last, the day when he was to be 
added to the noble army of martyrs who have 
died for freedom and for man, the President dis- 



32 

patched to General Van Alen a letter of con- 
siderable length, in which, after touching upon 
topics of public and private concern, he stated 
his intention to use, hereafter, " due precaution- 
ary measures." Mr. President, I can make no 
comment. 

The resolutions were then unanimously adopted, 

Mr. John H. White then arose and said, that 
while the proceedings of the evening would be noted 
upon the records of the Club, he deemed it emi- 
nently fit and proper that the outside world should 
know the horror and detestation with which the 
members of the Club looked upon the fiendish crime 
which had filled the hind with mourning. The 
assassination of the President of the United States, 
and the attempted assassination of the Secretary of 
State, in its heinousness and enormity had no his- 
toric precedent or parallel. It stands solitary and 
alone ; language being inadequate to give it a fitting 
and proper name ; and it can only be accounted for 
as an emanation from, and the legitimate fruit of 
Slavery, Secession, Treason, and the Fiend Incar- 
nate. He did not intend to take up the time of 
the Club by further remarks, but he hoped the 
mover of the resolutions, which had been adopted 



33 

with sufh luianiinity, would furnish copies of the 
same, to be published with the other proceedings of 
the Club. 

After the adoption of the resolution the meeting 
adjourned. 

GEORGE V. N. BALDWIN, 

Secretary. 



jr:.V29, 



■ij. 



ODE. 



Written by Mr. Hexry T. TL-o:<ni!MiN, of Iho O.mnillloo ou Rcsiiliiliiiiis, for llio funeral ol>si>. 
quios, April *Jfl, 1805 



Shroud the Banner ! rear the Cross ! 
Consecrate a Nation's loss ; 
Gaze on that majestic sleep, 
Stand beside the bier to weep ; 
Lay the gentle son of toil 
Proudly in his native soil ; 
Crowned with honor, to his rest 
Bear the Proi)het of the West ! 

How cold the brow that yet doth wear 
The impress of a Nation's care ; 
How still the heart whose every beat 
Glowed with compassion's sacred heat ; 
Rigid the lips whose patient smile 
Duty's stern task would oft beguile ; 
Blood-quenched the pensive eye's soft light, 
Nerveless the hand so loath to smite, 
So meek in rule, it leads, though dead, 
The People as in life it led. 



36 



m. 

! let his wise niid guileless sway 

Win every recreant to-day, 

And sorrow's vast and holy wave 

Blend all our hearts around his grave ! 

Let the faithful bondsmen's tears, 

Let the traitor's craven fears. 

And the people's grief and pride 

Plead against the parricide ! 

Let us throng to pledge and pray 

O'er the patriot-martyr's clay ; 

Then with solemn faith in Eight, 

That made him victor in the fight, 

Cling to the path he fearless trod 

Still radiant with the smile of God. 

IV. 

Shroud the Banner ! rear the Cross ! 
Consecrate a Nation's loss ! 
Gaze on that majestic sleep, 
Stand beside the bier to weej) ; 
Lay the gentle son of toil 
Proudly in his native soil ; 
Crowned with honor, to his rest 
Bear the Prophet of the West ! 



Ji:.V29. :x,M 



In tlie t'nnoi'al olisc(|iiies on the '2."«tli ot" A]iril, tlio 
Atlienanini Club j)artici[i;iteil, lieariiij:; an appropi'iate ban- 
ner, the members wearing distinctive badges of monrning, 
and beaded by tbeir Vice-President, Mr. IIknky E. Pierke- 
poxT, the President, Mr. William T. Blodgett, being 
then absent, as Cliairman of tlie Citizens' Committee. 



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